Category Archives: Dell Sweet

Dell Sweet: About the Legend of Sparrow

I began the Legend of Sparrow in a creative writing class several years ago. There were a dozen of us in the class, but only a small core of five who actually took the class to learn. The others were there to be entertained, get credits.
The first day of class the ones who were there to pass the time began to act up and a few of us shut it down by offering to read what we were writing. That set the tone for the entire semester and they were good and well behaved after that.
What I decided to share in that brief instance of bravery was a short-short story about a man having these odd dreams. He would wake up and find himself in a familiar place, yet no matter how hard he tried to find his way to home from there, although it should have been easy he could not.
That short story came from dreams I had had for years. I would find myself in a factory or train station, bus station, park: The place didn’t matter so much except it was always known to me. I knew that home and safety were a short way away. I could almost see it from where I stood, I could see the path worked out in my head. All I had to do was move my feet in the right direction and I would be set upon the right course. I could never do that though. For some reason I would turn the other way or someone would interrupt me and by the time I turned back everything had changed and I was lost.
I had written the short-short story based on that. Since we had both volunteered we were on the chopping block. Every day after that we would be reading updates to the stories we were writing. The other guy was writing a crime story; very complicated, people double crossed over and over again. One of those stories where you had to ask for clarity. And of course that was his offering while mine was this weird dream book where everything happens out of sequence and nothing made sense at first. Even so the class listened and eventually got into both stories and it seemed like the semester burned up it moved so fast.
About ten years back I found those stories and made them into a novel. I sat down one day with the stories, about 6000 words and a week later I was edging out a 100 k novel. I finished it at 125 thousand words and jumped into a sequel immediately. That sequel is still sitting in a composition notebook, two actually and I hope some day to write it into the word processor.
That is how I wrote back then. I wrote in composition notebooks. Even now I have composition notebooks and some days it is all I can do to stop myself from jumping into a story line and writing it out in one. That is because I wrote something like 30 novels that way.
I guess my point is you take them as they come. I started this novel as a Little dream sequence of my own and it became a book that is centered in the dream worlds of two Native American people…

The Legend of Sparrow: Laura must travel the trail of death to reach the city of the dead and free Sparrow Spirit…

THE LEGEND OF SPARROW

I had come back to spend time with Laura. I could not tell her my real reasons. That I was afraid of leading the Dream Killer to her. Or I was not sure even whether I was coming back in the end, so I had wanted to see her one more time. She asked me…

This is not a thrifty build, but it isn’t super expensive either. I put this machine together over the last few days. Everything is recycled parts, if I can get it, new if I can’t.

I started with an HP 1343W. I had that machine from a few years back when my own machine quit on a Friday night and I had no choice but to get a Walmart replacement. I asked the salesman, maybe he was all of ten, if it could be upgraded, motherboard, memory, etc. He assured me it could. It’s not like I could pop the case lid right there in the store and see if he was right.
Long story short he was wrong. Probably didn’t know so he fell back to the best sales position… “Yes! Yes it can be upgraded and it can mash potatoes too, sir.”
It became a door stop a few days later when I ordered a real machine from Amazon. I know, I should have taken it back. When I popped the lid I found a Mini ITX board. No slots. Soldered in Processor (Atom @ 1.6 GHZ) maxed memory and not even a power supply in the case, but a 50 watt converter/circuit board. The case, as you can imagine was pretty much empty.
After life as a doorstop I had to build a machine for someone who needed a very small machine in a very small case. Good, the doorstop Mini ITX board found a home and did well. I set the case aside because you never know.
I have built several machines in the last month and one of them I ordered parts for needed a Mini ATX board. That board is much bigger than an ITX board. Anyway, the board showed up dead, the guy shipped another and I set the board next to the old case. When I did I noticed that the Hewlett Packard case had been setup to use many different types of boards. That was all it took, my Dr. Frankenstein mind kicked in and began looking closer.

I saw that not only could it take up to an ATX board it could also handle a full size power supply, and that power supply could be installed in two different spots. Nice. Dr. Frankenstein was happy.
I order a gaming power supply, 650 watt, an nVidia hardcore 1 gig 5300 card. I love these full size cards. They were built for CAD operations a few years ago and sold for close to three grand then, now they are $30.00 to $40.00 bucks. I have a smaller one, a 4600 in my 8 core machine that I use to build video games. You can’t kill them. They are awesome.
I ordered 4 gig of 800 MHZ ram, an LGA 775 Intel main board, a 650 gig HD, a 360 gig drive, a DVD (All Sata) and a few parts to finish it up. I did the separate drives because it does make a difference in speed with a smaller primary drive.

I put it all together today and booted it up. Installed Windows on the main smaller drive, then rebooted and installed Linux Ubuntu 16 on the big drive. Awesome. Very fast with an Intel 3.0 GHZ dual core and the 4 gig of main memory. It is upgradable to 8 gig of main and it will accept a quad core at 3.3 GHZ.

All in I have about $95.00 bucks in it and it is plenty fast and will handle writing, game building, music apps and anything else I want to throw at it. I did upgrade the fans and I used Red LED for a pull fan under that custom front cover. Looks cool, and I have another fan on the way that will go in the back to continue to pull the air out.
Three hours today of software and updates and it stayed completely cool. The Processor cooler is aluminum finned and a fan. Works very well…

Hope I inspired you to find something of your own to build…

Free eBooks…

Today only:

Earth’s Survivors Collection FiveKindle Edition

The Earth’s Survivors Series follows survivors of a worldwide catastrophe. A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth completely, hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Police, fire, politicians, military, governments: All gone. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in desperate struggle to survive. From L.A. To Manhattan the cities, governments have toppled and lawlessness is the rule. The dead lay in the streets while gangs fight for control of what is left. Small groups band together for safety and begin to leave the ravaged cities behind in search of a future that can once again hold promise.
Earth’s Survivors Collection Five brings together book Six and book seven from the earth’s Survivors series in one volume. From the theft of the virus from a top secret facility to the births of The Nation’s first babies to the formation of The Fold and how it came to be.
Book six tells the story leading up to the Apocalypse. That tale includes the story of Billy Jingo, Alice Tetto, Major Weston’s private secretary. Ben Neo and Jimmy West, hired Killers, and a drug deal designed to hide the transfer of a top secret drug stolen from the Underground Bluechip facility, that goes very wrong. Set in the days leading up to the catastrophe that ends the world as we know it, Watertown is a hardcore ride through a world few would want to live in, but the world it leaves behind is somehow even worse than the one it helped to take away…
Book seven steps back to the beginning of the catastrophe to bring you the story of the Fold; Jessie Stone and why and how Snoqualmie settlement came to be. It begins in present time in the Nation and then falls back to just a few days after Watertown ends and the beginning of the Apocalypse. The Fold becomes the biggest challenge to the Nations power. The community that can force the Nation into compromise, or bring a war that may destroy both societies.
Both stories in their entirety in one volume…

A meteorite that was supposed to miss the earth completely, hits and becomes the cap to a series of events that destroy the world as we know it. Police, fire, politicians, military, governments: All gone. Hopes, dreams, tomorrows: All buried in a desperate struggle to survive.
From L.A. To Manhattan the cities, governments have toppled and lawlessness is the rule. The dead lay in the streets while gangs fight for control of what is left. Small groups band together for safety and begin to leave the ravaged cities behind in search of a future that can once again hold promise.

Los Angeles: Billy and Beth start out with a small group and wind up on their own as they make their way across America trying to find others and safety.

Manhattan: Adam leaves the safety of his apartment to find his way out of the dying Manhattan, gathering others as he makes his way.

Old Towne New York: Conner is alone for the first few weeks, but then he finds Katie and a reason to live again. They set out to survive and find much more than survival.

Watertown New York: Mike Collins goes to sleep thinking about his first vacation in many years that he will start in the morning. He awakens to destruction.

Follow the people that survive and set out to rebuild their lives. At first hoping only to make it day by day, but ultimately looking to the future and rebuilding a society where fear does not rule…

Plastic wrap is one of those inventions that didn’t quite make it all the way to where it claims to have made it. Yes, on the TV you will see overpaid, starved models whip that stuff off the roll and cover just about anything: A bowl of leftovers, a piece of cake or grandpa sleeping in a chair. In Fried Green Tomatoes whats-her-name covered herself in it and answered the door. Heck, you see movies where the bad guys run it over the victims mouth and that’s it for them. In real life none of that is going to work, I know, I have tried most of it, except grandpa and the movie stuff, and the wife stuff. Okay, I have only tried the food applications and none of them worked.

I have stood for ten minutes waiting to get enough off the roll in one piece to cover that piece of cake only to have it come undone and fall to the floor on the way to the fridge. And It was work to get it of the roll. The serrated edge? Junk, doesn’t work at all. It comes off torn, at an angle, the tube lifts out of the box and you find yourself holding the plastic wrap roll and nothing else. I hate the stuff. Somebody needs to fix it or send it to the Chinese.

Dishwashers belong in that same group. A product that falls short of the hype and promises. Every day I find myself washing breakfast/lunch and dinner dishes, rinsing them and then putting them in the dishwasher. What? Do I really do that? Yes I do and in fact you are told to pre-wash the dishes and depending on what that means to you, you might as well have a towel so you can then dry them and put them away instead of putting them in the dishwasher to essentially let them get sprayed with hot water and soap so they can then go through a sixteen hour wash cycle (I say that because I don’t care when I started the damn dishwasher, it is on and burning me whenever I am in the shower) then they can sit overnight and dry, ha ha ha. In the morning you take them out and rewash the ones you didn’t pre-wash well enough when you put them in, only now that stuff is heated on. Or you could wait until you have company and let them spot the bad ones for you.

Electric cars are not where they should be. They are supposed to go in the garage, plug in to charge up and drive a long time. Instead they last a few hundred miles. If they get hit hard enough they become an instant bio hazard or worse you do. And when they run out of juice you are not getting some gas and a jump to get you going again. Short out the batteries and you have a steel framed car that will fry you in a few seconds.

Irritants:

Items on eBay marked: “I really don’t know if the item works so I’m selling it as is” Ha, let me translate that. It should read: “I looked at the item and realized it was junk, so I said to my wife/husband, Honey? Let’s try to sell this on eBay.”

People who look at guitars and say “What’s that thingy do?”

People who look at computers and say “What’s that thingy do?”

Tinfoil: For some reason no matter how often I have reached into the oven and burned myself on tinfoil I immediately convince myself it didn’t happen. That must be the case because every time I am cooking something with foil I reach in there and grab it like it just has to be cool and then I burn the crap out of myself.

That is my Wednesday, hope your Wednesday is better, 🙂

Check out The Original Survivors series on Amazon:

Book One: The Original Survivors: From Ashes. The survivors face the apocalypse head on

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

THE BORDERLINE

Sunday night.

I buried the Mexican just after sundown. I can’t say much about the sort of man he was in life, but I can say he was a strong man in death.

The Moon has led my way and I’m on my way across the desert into Mexico of all places. What did they say, hide in plain sight? There I’m going to be. Probably already passed the border, and once I’m across the border I’ll find a small town to buy gasoline enough so I can reach South America.

I’ve played the events of yesterday over and over in my head as I’ve driven. It still makes no sense to me at all. They say shit happens, we’ll sometimes it does, and I tell myself that’s exactly what happened here. Some shit decided to happen and I just happened to be there.

Saturday evening.

It was early. I had nothing better to do so I took a walk downtown just to take a look at the buildings. Thinking, as I walked, how just a few short years ago I had spent almost all of my time down there. Chasing a high. Drunk or both. And sometimes a third thing: Taking a little comfort with the ladies. It all came back to me as I walked the streets.

About three years of my life had been spent like that. From the day Lilly told me goodbye, until the day I woke up in the alley that runs down the back of West Broad, behind the Chinese restaurant. The back of my head had been lumped up with something or by someone.

Some one, I decided as I had begun to blink the cobwebs away and feel carefully with my fingers. A lump only, no blood. Probably a closed fist…

Two feet away from me was a dead rat. A big dead rat, and a few even larger rats were breakfasting on him. And, suddenly, just like that, I was done. That gave me a clear message about the world. And I heard it.

Of course that didn’t mean I got off Scot free. There were many little things I’d done during my long, long slide. And it took time to fix those things. Rehab, jail for some bad checks I couldn’t remember. Bad teeth, health, ideas, depression, suicide, and finally a night where I felt strong enough to take a walk through the worst of my nightmares and see if I was truly over the drugs, the life, the weaknesses that had led me there in the first place.

So that’s how I came to be there yesterday evening: Getting my feet wet. Seeing how strong I was… Or wasn’t. And it turns out I was strong enough for the temptation of the streets, but not over the bad habits I had picked up there. And that’s what got me… I cannot believe it was only yesterday when all this started.

I walked by the mouth of the alley twice. Both times I saw the old Ford sitting there in the deep shadows. Heard the soft murmur of its engine running. Some guy and some girl, I thought, or some guy with some guy, or boy who knows what. It was downtown. Shit like that happened all the time. But, I thought after the second time, this guy must be trying to set a record. He’d been there for 15 minutes by my watch, not that it was my business. All the same, fifteen minutes is a long time for a trick. Or to shoot up. Fifteen minutes could bring a cop. In the street world it was just too long for almost anything. In fifteen minutes you could get your thing on, your drug of choice, and be a half mile away and have forgotten all about that last little space of time. So why was this guy still there?

And that was the street part of me that was not gone. The street part of me that was still looking for trouble. And I found it.

The third time by, which was just a few minutes later, I was too curious. My evening had bought me some excitement. The drugs, I could see the flow all over the avenue. Easy to see if you knew what to look for. The ladies were calling too. I knew what that was about. I didn’t look at them like they were whores, or something less than human. It was a line I couldn’t draw, had confused many times, so I came back fast to see what this was. That Ford was calling.

I had stopped at the mouth of the alley. Same Ford. An old one. Like a classic. Nice shape too. Maybe somewhere in the sixties, but I wasn’t good with cars like that. I only knew old, classic, nice looking.

Nobody around. Of course that didn’t mean there was no one in the car. I hesitated for only a second, and then walked quietly down the alley, staying in the shadows as I went.

~

I found the Mexican slumped over behind the wheel. Blood dripping down the side of his head. A gun on the seat beside him. Another guy was slumped over into the floorboards on the passenger side. That one was dead for sure. A large, bloodless hole on one side of his chest. A larger hole behind that shoulder I saw when I reached over to move him.

And why are you still here? A little voice in my head whispered. Why are you touching him? What are you doing? But I pushed those warning voices away and continued to look.

There was blood and gore all over the seat on that side. The coppery stench of blood was thick and nauseating. Something else mixed in with it, tugging at my brain. Blood and… Fear? Something. That was when the Mexican spoke in all that silence and nearly made me jump out of my skin.

“Don’t call the cops!” and… “No Policia.” His head came away from wheel. He shook it and drops of blood went flying. I felt it hit my face, but I was still too stunned to move.

“Hey! … You hear me, Blanquito? Habla English? … No Policia?” He muttered under his breath “Dios Christos,” he focused his eyes on me once more. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I thought you were dead,” I managed. I should’ve run. I chose to talk.

“Yeah… I get that a lot. But I ain’t dead.” He picked up the gun from the seat and before I knew it was in my face. “Come around the side, Blanquito. Get Lopez out of the car.” He waved the pistol and I moved.

Lopez pretty much helped himself out of the car. When I opened the door he spilled out into the alley, leaving the mess on the seat and a large smear of blood on the seat back and the door panel as he went.

“Good… Good,” the Mexican said. “Now get in the fuckin’ car… No… No… This side. Come back around to this side. I can’t drive no car, Blanquito… Dios!” He waved the gun once more and I moved. Racing around the hood of the car to the door.

The Mexican did a fair job of getting himself over into the passenger seat. I was glad it was him sitting in Lopez’s blood and not me, although I had been about to sit in it.

I slid into the driver’s seat.

“You got some kind of car… Truck… Something like that?” The Mexican asked.

I didn’t have a vehicle, but my grandfather had, had a truck. It was sitting in the garage in back of my house. That house had also been my grandfather’s. They were the only two things, the house and the truck, that had survived those three years on the streets.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” He looked around “Get this car moving. That’s the first thing… You got a place?… Close by? How does anybody sort of own a fuckin’ car anyway?”

“Yeah, I got a place” I said. I was afraid to answer, but more afraid of not answering fast enough.

“Let’s get there, Amigo.” He slumped back against the seat. I shifted into drive, worried I might drive over Lopez as I went, and drove us out of the alley.

~

The house was dark. I had thought to leave a light on, but I had forgotten. I drove the Ford right into the garage, pulled the garage door back down, and helped the Mexican out. He looked over at my grandfather’s truck.

“That your sort of truck? Looks fine to me, man. Doesn’t it run?”

The thing is it did run. I had been working on it here and there. I like to tinker with things. And I had a lot of spare time to fill when I quit drugging so I had turned it to the truck.

It was an old truck. But I had in the back of my mind to fix it up and drive it. So I had started with an oil change, then installed a new headlight on the driver’s side, that sort of stuff, when I had time.

I nodded. “No plates though.”

The Mexican nodded. “Don’t worry about that… Got gas in it?”

“Some… Enough to get you away.”

“Ha, Amigo.” He laughed and then clutched the side of his head where the blood still drizzled and spilled down the side of his face, spat some blood from his mouth, and looked back at me. “Us,” he said. “Us.”

I saw an amazing thing as he spoke. The Mexican had a small blue hole just above the stream of blood. A hole from a bullet. In his head. The blood just pulsed out of it as I watched. I wondered how he could even be alive.

I switched the plates to the truck and left the Ford sitting in the garage. I unloaded four big suitcases from the trunk of the Ford into the bed of the pickup truck. The Mexican had me stretch a tarp over the bed of the pickup and tie it off, and we were on the road. Heading for the Mexican border…

I hope you enjoyed this free preview. Scroll down for the Amazon link where you can get a longer preview of buy the book for just $0.99!

Mister Bob is a collection of short stories from Author Dell Sweet.

FIREFIGHT: Private Johnson finds himself in the middle of a firefight in the jungles of Vietnam. He has no idea how he got there, why he is there, or why the men with him seem to know more about his circumstances than he does.

RAPID CITY: When the apocalypse of the dead befell the world, men and women rose to the challenge. The great gunfighters of the zombie plague years rose and dealt with the dead with ruthless precision, but their time is fading.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS: Hired to do a simple job, the case that was not supposed to be a big deal turns into one. A man, a woman, and the lies that bind them together.

THE BORDERLINE: Billy had only intended to take a short walk downtown. See the girls, the sites, feel the night air on his face. Twenty-four hours later as he was digging a grave in the desert hard-pan, he found himself wondering what had gone wrong.

A DRESS FOR JANEY: A dirt poor farmer rides out after the thief that stole his horse. He leaves behind his wife to run the farm while he is gone, hoping he can catch the thief and return before too long. Morning turns into night as he rides alone.

MISTER BOB: A little girl awakens screaming in the night, convinced that someone she calls Mister Bob has come to her window in the middle of the night to plead for his life, hoping she will intervene for him.

Seventeen stories from Dell Sweet, from True stories to horror and even humor.

Crime Time

Dell Sweet

This book is available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iOS device, and with iTunes on your computer. Books can be read with iBooks on your Mac or iOS device.

Description

Crime Time is a collection of nine crime stories from author Dell Sweet. From short stories to near novel length…
… When a man tells you he has the moral flexibility to include murder in his life if he deems it necessary this is probably not a man you should be hanging out with.
Jeff Johnson had reminded himself of this fact about Robert Biel more than once, yet every day he found himself hanging around, giving him lifts to do job searches, parole, where ever he needed to go: Even hanging around with him at night…
Nine stories that are hard edged, entertaining and good, fast rides into the darkness that is the criminal’s world…
… In the last few days she had decided a few things. First: Dello was a killer. She knew that. It was how he made a living. It wouldn’t be hard to kill her, she supposed. She knew that sounded unreasonable, probably was wildly unreasonable, but she couldn’t get it out of her head. What if they were over and suppose he needed her gone because she knew too much. Way too much. What would he do, tell her it’s over and show her the door? She didn’t believe it. What she did believe, what had gotten into her head, was that he would take her somewhere and kill her…
Unforgettable characters and places. A gritty world from Sweet’s mind where anything can and usually does happen…
… Too late, I thought as I realized I had left the machine pistol lying on the front seat instead of keeping it in my right hand where it should have been. I could hear the sound of a machine pistol behind me as the Mexican opened up. I did what I could. I aimed the truck at the two men; levered the door-handle and prepared to jump just as the windshield hit by several of the rounds fired by the two men was blown inward: My world faded to black…
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

LEGAL

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

Permission is granted to use short sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic print.

This excerpt is licensed for this blog and used with permission. This material has NOT been edited for content and is therefore rated 18+

Destruction

“This was all me,” Mike said as they stood just inside the shattered front windows of the supermarket. The large piles of debris he had pulled out of his way as he searched through the rubble seemed to frame the dark opening that led into the interior of the store, piled high on either side of the twisted steel frames. They formed a dark, forbidding tunnel.

“Maybe it’s a little worse for wear and tear from the rain and the last earthquake.” He looked around and shook his head. “Maybe not though. It doesn’t look any worse at all. Doesn’t look like the rain got in.”

The smell was strong though. It made Mike wish he had removed the bodies the last time he had been there. Patty, Candace and Ronnie all had faces on, wrinkled noses, squinting eyes, partially turned away from the darkened tunnel and the aisles that were barely visible in the gloom.

“It’s pretty bad,” Ronnie said.

Mike simply nodded.

“I shopped here a few times,” Candace said. “I know the basic layout.” She looked to the left then to the right. “Mostly canned vegetables, canned soups, stews, that sort of thing?” She pointed to an area Mike had cleared out.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed, impressed. “I was trying to remember which way to go.” All three of the others were nodding in understanding.

“Patty, did you and Ronnie come here? I think we want to go to the left. I think the next aisle is paper goods, utensils stuff like that.” Candace said.

“A few times,” Ronnie elaborated.

“All the time,” Patty added. “He doesn’t like to shop if I remember correctly.”

Ronnie laughed. “Pizza delivery for Two C,” he said and laughed. Then, “yeah, it was easier to get something on the way home, have a pizza delivered. I think my refrigerator had two or three boxes with leftover pizza, and a couple of six packs… maybe an old jar of Mayo.” He looked apologetic.

“Good a place as any to start,” Ronnie said. They all nodded and started to work clearing the debris from the front of the aisle, piling it outside the shattered front windows.

Everyone wore heavy gloves to protect themselves from all the broken glass and brick, so the work went quickly. They had pulled the trucks as close to the front of the building as they could, so once they reached the aisle it was easy to retrieve and load what they chose to keep right into the trucks.

Moving the debris that blocked the aisles went much faster with three extra pairs of hands. In no time at all they had progressed down the aisles and were nearing the back wall of the supermarket.

The closer they got to the back of the store the stronger the odor of corruption became.

“Bad,” Patty said.

“Yeah… I think that’s lunch meat… Produce…”

“The butcher shop is back there also,” Ronnie said.

“Storage?” Candace asked.

“Probably where Lilly got the corn. She probably used the back door though,” Mike said.

They had already come across two bodies as they had dug their way through the aisles. Rather than leave them there as Mike had done, they had dragged them out of the market and covered them with a tarp at the front of the store. Despite that, the store didn’t smell any better than it had. Rats, mice, and bugs had infested the market.

“Both the Suburbans are packed. The pickup nearly is,” Ronnie said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m thinking, what else is there here that we could need?”

“Duh,” Patty said and smacked her forehead with an open palm. “Hang on. Follow me,” she turned and walked down to the destroyed front window area and stepped out into the bright sunlight. The others followed, stopping to blink their eyes rapidly in the overly bright sunlight. Slowly adjusting after so long inside the dark interior.

Patty made her way along the front of the store, in the same direction they had been walking inside. Just about twenty feet from the end of the store a single steel door rested.

“The back door,” Patty said. “It used to be a drug store, but when it was closed the supermarket snapped up the lease on that space. They took out the front windows and bricked it all up, put in this steel door unit. We can get into the back storage area from here. That’s what they used it for, more storage. I remember reading about it in the paper. One of those days when I was so bored I read every story in the paper.” She laughed. “You know, in a small town, everything’s a big story.”

Ronnie looked over the handle with its inset lock. “This can’t be the way Lilly got in,” he said.

“No,” Candace agreed. “There’s a whole different warehouse area at the absolute back of the store. Different area.”

Ronnie nodded. “I don’t know if it wouldn’t still be easier to go through from the inside though.” He looked over the door. “That’s a steel jamb. And that,” He pointed down at the inset lock, “Is probably a deadbolt. It’s going to be tough to get opened easily.”

Mike left, walked to the Suburban and came back a few seconds later with a massive sledge hammer and a long heavy crow bar. He set the end of the crowbar into the steel jamb at the place were the lock-set was. He tapped it lightly a few times to wedge it into the door. After the easy taps he swung hard twice, driving the heavy bar into the door. The door easily dented inward, the lock-set pieces flying out onto the concrete of the sidewalk as he drove the end of the heavy crowbar home.

The door itself bent out of the frame with a soft squeal of metal.

Mike started forward into the small circle of light when the odor from inside the space suddenly leapt out to assault him. At the same time, a distinct sound reached his ears, the sound of dozens of buzzing flies. Mike moved back quicker than he had thought to and nearly tripped over the others as he did.

Ronnie stepped forward, snagged what was left of the door and pushed it shut. The broken lock mechanism jammed in the steel door unit and held it closed.

Ronnie’s face was gray. Sweat popped out along his brow. He had seen dozens of bodies inside, just within the small perimeter of light that had come through the open doorway, and what looked to be dozens more just beyond in the shadows.

“Jesus,” he managed as he quickly made his way past the others, around the side of the building, away from the odor. He almost kept his breakfast down, but as the picture of the devastation inside replayed in his head, he lost the brief struggle. He came back after a few minutes.

Everyone had walked further down what was left of the sidewalk, away from the door. His face was still pale, but he felt marginally better.

“All right,” Patty asked as she rested the back of her wrist against his forehead. Her eyes were worried.

“Better,” Ronnie said. “I just wasn’t prepared for that. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Looked like they were stuck in there,” Candace said.

“Except they could’ve just knocked the lock off like we did.” Mike’s eyes met Ronnie’s. They had both been close to the door as it opened and they had both seen the same things. Weapons scattered everywhere. There had been some sort of battle in there.

“What?” Candace asked. She looked at Ronnie.

“Looked like a lot of weapons just lying around by the bodies…like maybe a gunfight took place and then the ceiling caved in. But they were dead before that… shot for some reason. Shot each other?” He looked over at Mike.

“Maybe,” Mike allowed. “Or shot and then whoever did it just shut and locked the door and walked away.” He shrugged helplessly.

“Well, they must have killed each other,” Patty said.

“Maybe,” Ronnie said. “But like Mike said…” He shrugged too. “Some weapons looked like they might have been thrown in on top of them… It doesn’t fit.”

Mike nodded.

Candace looked from Mike to Ronnie, a look of disbelief on her face. She glanced back down at the door, back at Mike once more, then spun and walked back down to the door.

“Candace,” Mike called. He started after her, but she reached the door and tugged it open before he reached her. “You don’t,” he started.

She drew in a short breath; her hands came up and cupped her nose and mouth. Her legs were planted firmly, her posture rigid. “It’s true,” she mumbled through her hands. Mike leaned past her shoulder and took a closer look at the room.

There were many more bodies than his first quick look had shown him. The weapons were lying on top of the bodies, as though they had been shot and then someone had tossed the weapons into the room, shut the door and walked away. Just as it had seemed to both he and Ronnie in their first short view.

What hadn’t appeared in their first short view were the other things that were, at first, not readily seen.

They had, every one, been shot in the head. But that was not the only thing. It was the way some people’s hands weren’t showing. That in itself didn’t actually register for a few seconds until he realized no one’s hands were showing. Then his eyes took in the bodies in more detail than his eyes had wanted to provide, and he realized the reason their hands were not showing was because they were behind their backs.

He saw two people that answered the why of that. Bright glimpses of metal showed between the bloated skin of their wrists. Handcuffed… His mind had supplied tied, but it was not tied, it was handcuffed. And handcuffed was not a mistake. Handcuffed could not shoot back at all. They had been herded in here, for whatever reason, handcuffed and shot… Murdered, his mind supplied.

“Come on,” he said quietly to Candace. “We don’t need to see any more of this do we?”

She shook her head, turned back towards him, and then suddenly found herself running around the side of the building the same way that Ronnie had. A few minutes later, she came back out and joined the others. Everyone was silent. The morning had moved on and the afternoon was bright sunshine and warmth on the cracked sidewalk, but none of that warmth seemed able to touch her.

“Probably never know why,” Ronnie said after a long silence. He spun the cap off a bottle of water, took a deep drink, rinsed his mouth, spat and then drank again. They were all gathered around the trucks.

Mike stared off down what was left of State Street. The street itself was more dirt and sand than pavement. The buildings that were left tilted crazily. Some looked almost untouched until you got close to them. From here they looked fine, just like from the sidewalk the steel door hadn’t seemed to be hiding anything special, his mind jabbered.

“There’s another drug store up the street,” he said, just to be talking. “I didn’t check it. I wasn’t thinking about it. It’s an actual drug store… So I was thinking what could there be there that I would need. But drugstores sell all sorts of things. We could go see.”

“Let’s go see,” Patty said.

They all piled into the trucks like they had only been looking for an excuse to go. As they drove away, Mike knew he would never come back to the supermarket for anything. Silence held as they maneuvered their way over the shattered pavement and made their way down the street…

I hope you enjoyed the free reading. You can get the entire book at the links below. The book is an Amazon exclusive…

Rain in New York and the Human experience

It’s raining in New York. Heavy, cold rain. Summer has been pretty hard to find the last few days. I thought I would share part of my past week with you…

I use Windows Seven for my operating system. Not because I like Windows Seven, but because Linux is not universally accepted yet. So I use Linux as much as I can and then Windows Seven when I have to. And forget about 10, I tried it and decided it wasn’t for me, so I have been hanging in there with 7.

I purchased a new machine a month or so ago and it came with Windows Ten. Oh, I could write a whole blog about how I hate Windows Ten. And I do. It compromises you and your information on every level, because it insists on having it. It insists on knowing everything there is to know about you. Do you have five freckles on the inside of your left thigh? That would be about the only thing it doesn’t ask or know about it, but I would not count on the fact that it doesn’t know, it just might. Anyway, for me, too nosy. I buy the software and so I guess that means I am supporting the invasion of my privacy. But I would like it to be more like a car. A Toyota will drive me anywhere I want to go, but so will a Ford or a Chevy or a Dodge or, well you get the idea. So why is it we only have Windows? Where the hell is the support for Linux? Or something else? Okay, That’s all I have on that.

So, I deep-sixed the machine I bought because, as it turns out you can not easily delete Win 10, at least on this machine. It would not allow me to install my Win 7. I struggled with it for a week. I decided in that space of time that there was no redeeming quality there and then one day I went online, ordered the parts from Amazon to fix my old machine; kicked myself for not doing that first and once they came I spent a few hours fixing the old machine. Once I was done I unplugged the new machine, stuck it back in the box and slid it under my desk. It made a great foot rest until my mother’s machine locked up the other day.

Moms machine is my old machine. I wrote several short stories and my first novel on that machine, a lawn sale item I had all of 40.00 dollars into. “Well, how would you like a Windows Ten machine, Mom,” I asked? For her it’s great. She is a social animal, Mom is. I think something like 600 face book friends. She has all her on-line shopping places, her Kindle account. Huh, I said to her people actually use computers to socialize? Mom just laughed at me. She figured out Win 10 immediately and has no problem with it. Humph…

I use Windows Seven and it makes me money, or helps me to make a living. It’s a tool I use to run the software that makes my living and it allows me to access the publishing services I need to be able to make my living. It also allows me to buy and sell on-line if I so choose, use software to listen to music, manipulate my artwork and create Artwork too. Record Music of my own. Read other E-Books (Yes, I read other authors, not just the ones here at independAntwriters). In short I spend a great deal of time in the Windows Seven environment and all I ever do is complain about it, uh sort of like I am right now. But once I got a load of Win 10 I decided I would embrace Win 7. No more complaints from me.

So, last week I went to Google for a translation for a phrase spoken by one of the characters in Earth’s Survivors Three. Katie Lee is Japanese and African American. Her Grandmother spoke Japanese. I remembered the pronunciation for Grand Daughter in Japanese, but did not want to hack the spelling. And, growing up and hearing it, having an idea in my head what it meant, and then what it really means are different things sometimes. I went with Magomusume instead of Mago. Magomusume is more formal, and not really used often. But, I didn’t want to confuse things, it’s not like the character can launch into a long explanation about why it is not usually used in the Gender specific form.

So, I found it, but when I had searched, it had also shown me a few images of people that indirectly related to my search. Japanese life. Yes, for once not the porn that always seems to pop up, but actual people… With their clothes on. I was awed and so I did something I rarely do, I spent about four hours more on Google looking for more pictures of people from all walks of life. So when you read Earth’s Survivors Three and you reach the point where Katie explains Magomusume you will know that as soon as I wrote that I then spent four or so hours Googling stuff. I went ahead and clicked the ‘Images’ link on Google. Like I said, usually I am leery of it, but this time I carefully restricted my keywords and was rewarded.

Poor, Gypsies, Vietnamese, Japanese, Native American, African and African American. One simply led to the next. And why look if you don’t intend to keep? The reason I thought of that is because I know a man who, whenever I visit, has his desktop machine (A MAC, Ironically) set to show different life scenes. And this is on his office machine, so while I’m waiting I watch the picture show. I have been there enough times to know the pictures and so I anticipate certain ones.

I sit in the padded leather chair in his office, in America, where even the very poor do not starve to death in the streets, or get shot or terrorized by soldiers, or shot, killed and dumped in a ditch somewhere. At least not as the normal course of a day. Violence does happen here too. Having both grown up poor and spent time actually living on the streets as a teen I understand that what we see on the surface is only a poor reflection of what is under that surface, but I sit in his padded leather chair and I watch scenes from all over the world: People, Artwork, Animals, Architecture and more. It’s pleasant to watch. Soothing. I suppose it is for him too.

But the images I discovered that day were people who knew nothing at all about me. My life. My computer. The life I lead is so far from their life that it might just be incomprehensible to them. In any case, for most of them, they will never live this type of life. And they don’t look all that unhappy about the possibility of never living this life to me.

Yes, in some instances I’m sure they are. When their basic rights are violated, when they are oppressed, when they are hungry. Not our version of hungry, I mean when they have not eaten. Maybe for days. So their life is not all roses, but they don’t miss what they have never thought about, seen or experienced. And I am not talking about the basic things they should have, I am talking about the excesses most of us have as Americans and don’t even think about. And I looked at the pictures and I thought this is what I need to look at every day. This is what can keep me connected to the real world. That is important to me. Being grounded. Staying grounded.

So I spent about four hours and downloaded every picture that I came across that I liked. I put them in a folder and I have added to that folder a few times now when I have thought of other people I would like to see. Then I set my desktop to that folder and voila. I Guess I am bringing it up because it affected me in some unexpected ways.

First, I have dual monitors, so as I work I can see the pictures change, for the most part. The only time I can’t is when I have something else up on the second monitor, but I found that I tend to leave that monitor blank most of the time now. And that throughout my day I am watching the faces pop up. A mother in Africa with her baby. A band of Gypsies Exiled by Hitler before or during the war. He hated them as much as he did the Jewish people. A proud but poor Father in Mexico posing outside of a house most of us would not want to step inside of let alone call home, with his family. All smiling. Looks like they have a lot of love if not money.

A young Native American mother sometime back in the 1700’s staring wide eyed at the camera, her child held in her arms. She looks so young and scared. A little boy smiling up at the camera, tribal scars on both sides of his face. He looks so happy. His smile is genuine. A mother nursing. Rebels posing with machine guns on a road in a jungle somewhere. A young Vietnamese woman making her way through the ruined streets of some Vietnamese city. A Chinese woman with her child on her back, wrapped and looking at the world go by as mom makes her way to where ever she is going. And more…

A family on the road. A father carrying his children. Images of war, images of peace. Images I have no context for, only the people looking into the lens of the camera, or away: Caught unawares. I realized it really was keeping the world in my mind. Why is that father carrying his children? What does that mother feed her children? Do they know about the western world? What do they think about it? I like it. It keeps the world on my mind. The part of the world that is important.

I don’t mean our jobs, bills, house payments aren’t important, I am only saying that people are more important. Seeing these people from all over the world. Some surely still living, some long gone away, keeps me grounded. If only because of what I just said. I know some are gone: Some still here. It reminds me that there were times with my family, friends, I wish I could have back, had cherished more. Some of those people are gone now. If I remember them as I look at the pictures it’s like they never left. And there are the questions I have for those I see in the pictures too. It keeps the important things in the world in perspective for me.

It has been an interesting week so far and I am glad I made the change. It even makes me grateful, yes, grateful to Microsoft for this desktop where I can watch those changing pictures. Or whoever came up with the idea. Does that mean I can’t complain about Windows anymore?

Carl Evans watched from the mouth of a dark alley. It was one of the things he loved about this place. You could hang out in an alley, smoke cigarettes all day and night long if you wanted to, and nobody said a word to you. Where else, but New York could that be true, he asked himself.

He leaned back against the wall, one sneakered foot propped on the brick behind him to hold him, the other flat on the cobbled stones of the alley. Another thing about New York, he thought as he inhaled deeply of his cigarette, and then let the smoke roll slowly out of his mouth. Old things everywhere you looked. These cobblestones for instance. He wondered how old they truly were.

“Young man.” The deep voice startled him from his thoughts. He lifted his head to see an old, gray haired gentleman standing at the mouth of the alley a few feet away. His face was creased and seamed. His skin so dark it was nearly blue. A cane in one hand supported his weight.

“What’s up, Pops?” Carl asked politely.

The man placed his second hand on his cane and leaned forward. “That cigarette will kill you. “

“Pops…”

He held up one hand as Carl began to speak. “Just telling you. Don’t need an argument. It will kill you. The big tobacco’s, they knew about it back in the day when I was a boy chasing that habit. And they knew about it when it was in commercials in magazines, and T.V. and what not. That cowboy died from it you know, they knew it and they still know it. It will kill you. In case you didn’t know it I wanted you to know it.” He straightened his back, lifted the second hand, nodded once, and moved across the mouth of the alley disappearing as though from some sort of magic.

Carl chuckled, lifted the cigarette to his mouth, took a deep drag and then found himself blowing the smoke out, dropping the cigarette, and crushing it. The old man had ruined it for him. He hadn’t smoked in ten years, but it tasted as good now as it had then. And he had figured with the way things were nobody had much time. Certainly not enough time to die from cancer or some other nasty surprise from cigarettes, but just the same the old man had ruined it for him.

He looked down at the blackened mess he had made as he ground the cigarette into the cobbles. Just as well, he told himself, it was time. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small silver canister. He inhaled a sharp breath involuntarily. He knew what it was. Knew what he was doing, but he still couldn’t believe he was actually going to do it.

He fingered the small red button on the top of the silver canister, hesitated, and then pushed it down. Something inside clicked. There was no other sound in the stillness. He tossed it down the alley, turned, and walked out to the sidewalk.

The weekend is creeping up on me. I think someone stole a few days and tried to slip one over on me. Or I would, except it really is Thursday. The image is a herd of deer in my side yard. There were actually about eight of them when I first spotted them.

I would like to mention the book Zero Zero. I wrote this book some time ago, as in years, and it is only now available. I write an end of the world book series, Earth’s Survivors, and this book is in the same vein. Different, but I think equally good. I mean that.

I was talking about this place today with someone today. How it did not start out to be an indie publishing vehicle, but simply an outlet for my own digital book copies. Now there are nine writers here and I doubt it will stop there.

I guess we don’t say much about ourselves so maybe now is a good time to do that. We are all writers. This site was first started to create a space for Writers, Musicians and Artists. We have many of each and many who do all of those things. One thing I have come to realize is that creative people wear many hats, not just one or two.

None of us own the site, but three of us work here fulltime. Yes that makes it nice, we get to write as we write. In fact it is encouraged. The owner is not a writer or a musician or an Artist. She enjoys all three things and many others though and so she gave us this and allowed us to develop it and build it. That did not happen the way some of us saw it happening.

I can’t speak for the others but I saw a site where writers, artists and musicians all hung out and marketed their work. Now we have a site where all those things have occurred. The writers, musicians and artists are here, we talk all day sometimes, back and forth, give advice or work on projects, etc. If someone asks me to help, I do. I wrote two of my most successful short stories that way. One of the other writers wanted to publish an anthology and wanted some of my work in it. Something new. Something different. Okay. I offered Zombie Fall and Rapid City. Neither of those stories would have happened if I had not been in that creative process with others.

There are top grade musicians here. I do my own music. I used to play in bands years ago. But I have not stuck with it: Although I love it I have too many other obligations on my time. So I have turned to other musicians to catch up on the new technology, so to speak, because three of my characters in the Earth’s Survivors books write music and I want to be able to provide that music on the website as it evolves.

My point is that the creative processes here are really good. They help all of us to be better at what we do, and in some cases write things we would not have written, and, the big deal, it is not what we had planned to build here. And it continues to grow. I couldn’t be happier and I’m glad to be a small part of it too.

I believe I mentioned before that I am a tech wizard, well, at least in my own head, but, I am common sense stupid. Lacking, sadly, in that small area of the brain that says ‘What?’ or ‘Hey wait a second!’ Nope. My brain just says, ‘Yeah, go ahead, who cares,’ or, ‘Hey, it ain’t my problem, know what I mean?’

Here’s an example: I picked up a screwdriver yesterday that I had bought in case I needed it. Brilliant, because, six months after I bought it? I needed it. Brilliant. There is the brain in action. I did not have to go buy one, simply go get it and use it. But since I needed it I had to open it. Except it was packaged in that stiff, molded, welded-plastic stuff. You know, the stuff that was predicted to be gone soon because Walmart supposedly hated it? And because there were several injuries reported after trying to tear it open. Yes. That is the knowledge I had when I picked up the package, that it could hurt me. I think that is as far as my common sense thinking went because immediately my Brain said, ‘Yeah, may be, but it won’t hurt me.’ No explanation as to why it wouldn’t, just that it wouldn’t. And that is the problem with my lack of common sense. My dumb self went… ‘Okay’ and immediately began to try to rip the package open.

After ten minutes and two cuts I gave up and admitted that my brainiac self had duped me again, bandaged my two hurt fingers, thanked God I had not lost a limb, and marveled over why we don’t issue this to our soldiers. They could present it to the enemy… ‘Here. Enjoy this Swiss Army knife that you can use to stab me to death.’ Our Soldier Smiles at his enemy. The enemy looks suspicious, but I have found a lack of common sense is a pretty, well, common thing. Especially in undeveloped countries that don’t know what that stuff is. So he tries to open it and end up slicing himself all up. Great weapon. I’m sure it could work.

Eventually, with the help of a pair of scissors, I did get the screw driver out, but I cut myself once more because the edge where I had cut it was so sharp. And I wondered, because people who lack common sense often wonder about stupid things and I am no exception, what if you bought a pair of scissors encased in that crap? And you bought them because you had to have them to open that sort of packaging?. What could you do? Could you go back to the store and use a complimentary pair of scissors to cut open the packaging? Could you go get your carpenters knife (Razor Knife) and slice it open with that? (I did this once while holding the packaging on my lap. NOT Recommended.). Do you even have or own a Carpenter’s Knife? Could you run over it with the car and break the packaging? Nope. Doesn’t work. Nevertheless, I thought of all these things anyway. No, I decided, I would bend the package until the scissors popped through. That would work. So now I plan a trip to my local Walmart so I can buy a pair of scissors and try my theories. And once I get them open I’m going to run with them and see if that old wives’ tale is true. I mean, after all, how can it be dangerous if you don’t fall? I don’t plan to fall.

Well that’s my week. I hope your work week so far had some amusement in it for you as mine did. It’s a beautiful night here in New York, 68 degrees and low humidity. I just mowed the lawn a little while ago, so add the smell of freshly mowed grass to that. If I had a pond and a fishing pole I’d be all set, but I do have a chair and a porch and I think I’ll go watch the sunset. I like the way my characters in my books get to do that. They think of those things, maybe because they have lost so much. They take time to enjoy and appreciate those simple pleasures now. Enjoy the Week… Dell.

Take a look at Rising from the ashes…

EARTH’S SURVIVORS #prepper Rising From The Ashes: I-Tunes From L.A. To Manhattan lawlessness is the rule, eBook… https://goo.gl/xddmoT

The Legend of Sparrow

Wendell G Sweet Geo Dell

This is copyrighted material

“Benjamin told me the legends first…….”
“In the beginning the Creator made a way to the peoples that will always be open. First Woman, The Clan Totems, the Star People, were all able to communicate, and they are still able now, up to this day and beyond, until your days cease you will have a pathway to that knowledge. A way to reach all that is possible. You hold the keys to all that is within yourself. We all do…”
“This is how the Creator came to make that way open for us, Benjamin told me.”
Laura nodded, curled her feet under herself and settled in to listen.
“We were in a sweat lodge at the time. One Benjamin had built with the help of my Uncles and Cousins. So many used it though that we had to check first to see if it could be used.”
“The Owl Woman’s Society uses it,” he told me. “That meant nothing to me. At least nothing concrete. I had known my mother belonged to the Owl Woman’s Society. I didn’t know what they did: Where they met. What they decided. How important they were to each other, to us, to the well being of our people.”
“We settled into the sweat lodge and Benjamin began to tell me the legend of the Dreamer’s Way… What came to be known as the legend of the Sparrow…”

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